Well I am bumping my own started thread because I found out that the gallon of Meg`s Detailer D143 Non-Acid wheel and Tire cleaner is STILL on back-order from the Autopia Store after placing my order of detailing products and equipment items. (Yes, I am trying to do my part in keeping this forum going by buying products from the Autopia Store; AKA, Palm Beach Motoring Group) Did not say so on the website, but was informed by email. NOT happy but it`s not the Autopia Store`s fault.
I do have a "beef" with Meguairs, though. Their D-RTU14332, 32 ounce Detailer Ready-to- Use (RTU) Wheel and Tire Cleaner IS available, but it is not a cost-effective way for me to buy and use that SAME product as the D143 gallon concentrate is. My beef (AKA, Captain Obvious conspiracy theory) is that they are diverting this "perhaps shortage" of a product to the RTU packaging because there is a better profit margin on it. Makes good economic business sense. It also underscores what is happening in this current economic market and inflated prices of seemingly all things. Are many businesses doing this? Don`t really know, but it is an example of some of the free market, supply-and-demand principles that manufacturers and companies use in a "supply chain crisis" as we are experiencing now. There is little incentive for Meg`s to change this current business practice and long as they are making a profit by doing so.
Another good example is vehicle manufacturing. WHY do you think The Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler Auto) make more truck and Full-sized SUVs and have abandoned the sedan market? There is more of a profit margin on higher-priced trucks and SUVs. AND when micro-chips are in short supply, where should that item be "de-directed" for vehicle production? NOT to sedans or smaller SUVs (AKA, less-expensive with a lower profit-margin). Again, it makes good economic business sense.
This whole business "game" is not good for the consumer, but the reality is there is little the average consumer can do about it, other than not buying the product at its high-price OR wait for prices to come down as the supply chain issues "work themselves out". That said, the principals of pricing that SHOULD be at work in a free-market, supply-and-demand economy have changed. Unless you are a highly-educated economist combined with some physic future foreseeing abilities, there is no telling where and how this "supply change crisis" and whole economy will turn out.
MY biggest fear is that the government will step in and begin controlling and telling through legislation companies what to produce and how much to charge for them. That is democratic socialism in a nut-shell. It`s already happening in the pharmaceutical and medical business world. When the government and its elected officials want to lower pharmaceutical (AKA, prescription drugs) and medical cost through such legislation on these business for the good of the consumer, it undermines the free-market supply-and-demand principles of our current economy as it exists today. It sounds plausible and good for consumers. UNTIL you realize the Pandoa`s Box it opens that it may be YOUR business or company that the government will be the next to be "regulated". It`s a fine line between self-governed moral and ethical economic business operating practices and when the government of-the-people,by-the-people, and for-the-people steps in to regulate and control what are the moral and ethical operating, pricing, and profit practices of free market companies.
